I don’t know how I missed it, but a couple of weeks back Vice posted a short video about that EARTH-SHATTERINGLY HISTORIC Men’s Rights rally in Toronto that captured the attention of the world a tiny fraction of a percentage of people in the world (including the people at it and readers of this blog) a little over a month ago.
Alas, WordPress won’t let me embed the video here, but you all need to go look at it. Not only does it capture pretty well what a dinky event it was, but it also contains a bunch of mini-interviews with some A Voice for Men folks that are rather revealing.
The most revealing one of the bunch starts about 2:40 into the video, when AVFM’s Suzanne McCarley explains that
Men, as a class, have never ever oppressed women, as a class. Men have always protected and provided for women. And protected them from oppression from others.
From others? What kind of others? Like, space aliens?
Women have never objected to this, and in fact have always been grateful because it’s how they survived. It is only in the last few hundred years when women of privileged class who don’t even know what they’re being protected from feel disadvantaged because they’re not comfortable with the level of protection they have.
Wow. A few hundred years? Sometimes people accuse MRAs of wanting to take us back to the 1950s. McCarley apparently wants to take us back to the 1750s.
They don’t even understand what they’re being protected from.
Wolves? Sharks? Dishpan hands? Space aliens?
They have no concept how dangerous the world is for them but gosh they’re just not happy because, you know, the males in the family tell them what to do and make all the decisions for them and control all the money. That’s not oppression. That’s protection.
Wow. So I guess slaves and prisoners are the most protected classes of all.
It’s what kept our species alive and what built … [she gestures at the park and the buildings around it] this beautiful city.
Wait. I thought Jefferson Starship built this city. On rock ‘n’ roll.
Anyway, there’s also some footage of a speech about the evil oppression of white men given by an unknown speaker at the rally. He also complains that men working for the government are men who’ve had “their things cut off and are toeing the politically correct line.” (Hopefully after the bleeding has stopped.)
There’s an interview with Paul Elam, who for some reason looks like he’s wearing mascara (which I’m pretty sure he isn’t). He delivers this puzzling pronouncement:
Looking at men in government and saying they have all the power is like looking at women in grocery stores and saying they have all the food.
Not only is this way more revealing about gender inequality than Elam may realize, but it’s also a tad ironic, because Elam not that long ago used (unreliable) data about how women “control” most consumer spending — that is, they do most of the shopping — in order to argue (twice!) that women were the ones primarily responsible for destroying the environment.
There are assorted other bits of misinformation and ignorance and just plain old bigotry from the MRAs.
There’s also some commentary from the counterprotesters that made me wince. No, MRAs aren’t all Marc Lepines waiting to happen. They’re shitty enough people as it is; you don’t have to compare them all to a misogynist mass murderer to make your point. And in fact, you undercut yourself with that kind of rhetoric. Focus on what they actually say and do. It’s bad enough.
And the “racist, sexist, anti-gay” chant? Drop that. MRAs are, for the most part, driven by misogyny — not by other bigotries. Yes, some are racist, including one of the speakers featured on this very video, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are homophobic, but that’s not the driving force for most of them. Some are transphobic — including Elam himself — but that’s not a central issue for most of them.
It’s worth pointing out these other bigotries, but to make these issues the centerpiece of your counterprotest is to miss the point — it would be a bit like attacking the Ku Klux Klan as “sexist and racist.” I’m sure plenty of KKKers are sexist as hell, but with the Klan racism really is the main thing; with MRAs, misogyny is.
And in this case it gave AVFM’s Karen Straughan the opportunity to appear (at least for a moment) like a reasonable person by pointing out that she in fact is not straight.
Anyway, watch the video. It’s amazing.
@ LBT
Yeah, it’s one of those things that a lot of queer people haven’t even thought about. Kind of obvious once you do, but easy not to, and a perfect example of why I’m worried that there might be race-related stuff that’s making POC feel disinclined to comment here that most of the current commentariat may be completely missing.
Argenti: Pecunium — I’ll give a real reply in a second, but boiled frogs do jump.
Hence the scare quotes
Mr C and I have a longstanding in-joke about the extent to which our sense of disconnection from a lot of American far-leftists stems from both of us having seen up close and personal what the results of violent conflict are as children.
Pecunium — I’ll cop to it, I told you to stay for entirely selfish reasons 🙂
More or less off topic, but related, I suspect you get more gender policing than I do. Would it be rude for me to call you my favorite cis boy in a skirt? It’s mostly the “boy” party I’m questioning, since you’re, you know, older than me.
Cassandra: I am not completely unwilling to take part in a revolution/civil war, but the bar is high.
RE: pecunium
the (implicit) idea that Athiests need to “convert” theists to “leave the faith entirely” is, at best, problematic.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m an atheist. Always have been, likely always will be. My husband is a Southern Baptist, and some people seem to assume one of us HAS to try converting the other. The fact is, my husband would make a MISERABLE atheist. He would be very unhappy, and even though he hasn’t been to church in years due to obvious reasons, I think to officially leave would break his heart. I want my husband to be happy, and his faith is obviously a large part of that happiness. So why would I want to make him be like me? I’m pretty sure he feels the same way about my atheism.
RE: CassandraSays
Hmmm. Well, when it comes to the race issue… maybe David could have a guest poster, for a few days or a week or something? (If he’s amenable, of course.) Invite one of our readers of color to talk about it and open a discussion? Do you think someone might be down for that? I mean, come on, it’s not like the MRM doesn’t have PLENTY of racist shit to mock!
Eee, I missed that – who said the bit you quoted, Pecunium?
Anyway I”m with you on that one. That’s just arrogant, however well-meaning; every bit as much as when the urge to convert is the other way round. It’s doing the assumptions that religion results from a lack of introspection, which is one helluva generalisation and way patronising, and that atheism is automatically better for everyone than faith of whatever sort.
Which is bullshit. Yes, it’s hugely better for some people. Yes, I would like society to be far more secular (especially at government level) than it is. But I’ve been atheist and it was not doing my mental health one bit of good, nor my general level of happiness, or anything. So whether it’s right or wrong, fuck that idea.
Hey cool, sorta ninjaed by Rogan! 😛
erf… so… to elaborate a bit. I wrote that this morning, and refrained from posting it; because of the things being discussed in this thread. I just posted it by accident.
If we’d not been having this discussion, I’d not have posted it at all (not even by accident).
BUT… if not for the way we recovered from The Great Divorce, I’d not have kept it long enough to post it at all.
Missed your scare quotes while skimming, whoops!
To elaborate, it was on a different thread.
Question, what is the definition of “queer”?
I’m trying to figure out where I fit in, to be honest. There’s homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc. But where does “asexual” fit into this “system”?
Also, Asshole Atheist trying to convert everyone to be atheists: seriously, those people are as bad as theists trying to force you to believe in their religion.
You can be an atheist without being an ass, I say, and honestly, people who try to force their atheism on others are no better than people who try to force their theism on others.
Pecunium – that’s a relief, I was scrolling up and down thinking WHERE IS IT and wondering if I need new glasses! 😀
Alice — try here — http://queerdictionary.tumblr.com
RE: Alice
*puts on little Ace Education hat*
Okay, there are a bunch of different ways to be asexual. There is sexual attraction, and there is romantic attraction. For a lot of people, the two tend to correlate evenly — my husband, for instance, is bi, so he’s romantically and sexually attracted to both men and women. (Even though he WAY prefers women.)
However, there are people who don’t feel sexual attraction, but still feel romantic attraction — they want to go on dates, hold hands, cuddle, get married, or something else. So there might be two men who are romantically attracted to each other and become boyfriends. They’d still probably have to deal with the exact same shit gay sexual men would, plus a lot of confusion due to the social programming that says men (especially gay men) should want sex all the time.
Then there are folks who straddle the ace/sexual line. For instance, I’m hot for my husband, and so with him, I could probably pass for sexual. But he’s the only person I want. If we divorce, I’ll be single and celibate, and more importantly, I am okay with that. It is not a tragic end for me. I often don’t understand the woes of being single or celibate, because it’s not something I consider a bad state. Hell, it’s the state that I generally PREFER.
Also, some ace folks are okay with having sex, in some capacities. To please their partner, because it’s fun to them in a completely nonsexual way, because they’re into kink, or whatever. Sexuality is COMPLICATED.
Generally, most queers aren’t upset about people like me IDing queer. What they get really pissy over is straight/ace people IDing queer. And I’m not even going to touch that, just because then you get into fights over what the definition of ‘queer’ is and that’s like going to a group of rabid music fans and asking them to define ‘rock.’ It can get VERY passionate, very quickly, and in my mind, it’s a pretty pointless question that isn’t worth fighting over. If you say you’re queer, then I say okay. But I’m apparently not the majority about this.
I am about to head to bed, but I think I need to expand a bit, because this has sort of done what I didn’t want it to (the comment about theism).
I think (hope?) this was a poor locution.
I can see why one might think that a world lacking in theism is a good thing. Theistic issues have been the cause of a lot of strife (and not just Abrahamic theisms).
But I think the desire to find reason, order, and cause, to things means it can’t be done. I also think that actions are (in most cases) more important than beliefs about cause. One of the things a peripatetic life has done for me is expose me to a lot of people.
People are great. Some of them (even the great ones) believe some troubling things. So long as they don’t try to make the laws/mores adhere to those terrible things, I can cope.
I am a Catholic. I am more than “cultural catholic”. For whatever reasons, there are core principles of Catholicism which I am not able to give up (which was part of the problem DSC and Rutee had with me, but I digress). The Curia and I disagree on a lot of things. I am working (in my small way) to bring them more to accord with me.
I suspect this will happen. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime. I don’t expect to rear my children in the faith. This is partly because my primary partner is Jewish, and converting them goes against my principles, again I digress.
But I don’t think the tendency to see, “The Truth” will be obviated if religion is outlawed. The world will always have Sneetches. The trick is to make it plain that what’s in our hearts matters more than what’s on our bellies.
Argenti – Thanks. I’m still trying to figure out my sexual orientation details, and unfortunately, there’s not much to be had for someone who IDs as an asexual.
One of the many problems with that lure people away from the faith thing is that, as far as I can tell, faith and kindness are completely unrelated qualities. I know kind, empathic, social justice minded atheists and kind, empathic, social justice minded Christians (and Muslims, and Jews, and Buddhists). Ironically, the way that quote was framed suggests that the person who wrote it is shitty at observing people, because it doesn’t take much effort to observe the situation I’m describing above.
I hope this isn’t too much of a derail. I have nothing to say about the current topic, being a noob who missed all that stuff completely. I just wanted to say –
@Athywren
*Waves!* I’m recently new to genderqueer stuff too – I’ve accepted the label for myself for about a year, but have only come out to one person in real life so far. (On Halloween! It was awesome!)
Anyway, I just had to reply because I totally related to your self-reflection and “Are you sure?” And I get all excited when I see stuff I can relate to.
Okay, sorry. Continue with your conversation, everyone. *I would put an “embarrassed” smilie here if I knew how*
Sneetches!
It took 20 years, but my mother replaced my copy of Upside Downside Inside Outside.
Sorry, I grew up on Seuss, that was a squee.
Pecunium — email me if I’m one of those people who believes troubling things, cuz I have a thing about being a better person and respect your thoughts. Also, because I just emailed you sheer hilarity.
It was Freemage who made the comment
LBT – yeah, right now I’m trying to figure out where I am on the asexual thing. I THINK that I’m asexual, since I don’t feel sexual attraction to people at all. I’m still wondering whether I’m a romantic asexual, and if I am, what kind of people would I be interested in.
But sometimes I don’t feel as if I have a sexual orientation. I’m pretty sure I’m not heterosexual, but that just puts me in limbo. As you said, sexuality is HARD.
My problem is that LGBT doesn’t cover people like me, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to consider myself queer or not, because I don’t fit in LGBT. LGBTQ? QUILTBAG? One of my trans* friends stated that she hated it when people used QUILTBAG, saying that the LGBT movement is their movement, but that just makes me feel excluded.
I’m sorry, I’m rambling. *virtual self flushes red*
I think that would be one of the casual allusions Brooked was talking about (preens).
That makes me sad, considering how long it took to get the LGB part to accept the T as part of the group, and how hard some people in the L part in particular still work to try to exclude them.